


Home is where your love is.

by Moomo



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi | Fire Emblem: Binding Blade, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Racism, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 12:05:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10899006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moomo/pseuds/Moomo
Summary: Lyn through life, love, and motherhood.





	Home is where your love is.

Lyn can feel the gazes of the Lycians on her. They’re quick to avert their eyes and quiet their gossiping when Lyn turns to glance at them, questioningly; however, they’re equally quick to pick right back up where they left off when she turns her attentions away.

 

Barbarian.

 

Savage.

 

The words only make Lyn hold her head up higher. Prouder. She is a daughter of the plains, the last of the Lorca, and she will not be coerced into shame by a people who know nothing about what she is and where she came from.  

 

* * *

 

“Tell me about Sacae, Lyndis.”

 

It’s a common topic when she walks with her grandfather through the castle courtyards.

 

“What do you want to know grandfather?”

 

Sometimes it was about clothing, customs, marriage, or even animal husbandry. But today’s topic turns out to be considerably heavier.

 

“What is death like in Sacae? What are funerals like?”

 

“Well grandfather, in Sacae, death is just the beginning of a new life. For we all rise again to walk on our Mother Earth. This time as a human, maybe next time as a mouse. A life is infinite and cyclic.”

 

Lord Hausen looks absolutely stunned, but Lyn continues.

 

“Sometimes we return the bodies of our dead to Mother Earth, draped in blacks and reds. Sometimes we return the bodies of our dead to Father Sky, in the bellies of vultures and eagles.”

 

“Ah,’ Lord Hausen looks ill now, but he presses on, dedicated. “So, there are no funerals?”

 

“No, there are. We give away the material possessions of the deceased then. That way they will not be tethered to their former existence, so they can be free to find their next one. Items of particularly strong attachment are destroyed.”

 

“How peculiar,” Lord Hausen grouses, “to think that life is continuous like that.”

 

Lyn doesn’t understand her grandfather’s puzzlement. Isn’t it natural to think something as strong as life has no singular existence?

 

“When a river enters an ocean grandfather, it is the end of that river. But the ocean in turn, will supply a new river. It’s not so peculiar then, to view life in the same way.”

 

Lord Hausen laughs. “No, I suppose it’s not.”

 

* * *

 

On the road, again; this time with Eliwood and that Hector. While Lyn is sorry to leave her grandfather, she is happy to be traveling with old and new friends. Around a campfire, sharing a meal, Lyn laughs along while her friends share stories.

 

“Hey Lyn,” Wil, ever inquisitive, begins, “Rath and Guy are Sacaen too, right? Just like you?”

 

“Yes, they are,” Lyn nods. “But Rath and Guy are from the Kutolah tribe, and I from the Lorca.”

 

“Oh, so there are two tribes!”

 

“Even more than that,” Lyn smiles at Wil’s innocent amazement. “See? Guy and Rath’s robes both have strong triangle patterns on the borders. It’s a very Kutolah design. My own borders are thinner, less geometric.”

 

“Wow! You’re right!”

 

“They’re just little differences, almost invisible to those that don’t what to look for, but they’re distinctions all the same.”

 

“Cool!” Wil nods his head furiously, eager to learn more.

 

“I assume it’s just like how Lycia is divided into so many houses. There’s differences among them, yes? Even though they’re all Lycian?”

 

“Yes! Of course,” Wil gasps. “Thank you, Lyn!”

 

And Wil is off. Off to his next adventure, off to some new piece of knowledge even more novel than the one Lyn just provided. Lyn is happy though, to see Wil’s genuine curiosity; it’s a nice contrast to the exotification that Caelin’s own court put her through. How fascinating, the barbarian culture of the plains. How quaint, our own little savage right here in court. How charming.  

 

Lyn chuckles again, when she sees Wil fall into a mostly one sided conversation with Rath. Bless that boy for trying. Bless that boy’s open mind, his open heart.

 

* * *

 

The Lycian wagon horses are vastly different from the Sacaen horses Lyn is used to. The wagon pullers are massive and they have strange furry feet that Lyn can’t help but laugh at. The horses aren’t very fast either, but Lyn doubts they were bred to bolt about a battlefield.

 

In fact, all of Lycia seems to have such strange relationships with their animals. Cattle are kept in pastures, chickens in coops, and pigs in pens. In Sacae, herds people road beside their cattle, their goats, their livestock. Animals moved across the plains according to weather and feed. To be rooted in one spot seemed absurd to Lyn, unnatural.

 

But the Lycians got around that. They broke the earth, took her native vegetation, and forced strange crop plants into her rich soils. Moving across the plains, Lyn remembers a childhood of hunting and gathering, of respecting the will of Mother Earth and not taking more than what was freely given, of not breaking her fertile soils and forcing them beyond their natural yield.

 

Lyn contemplates this as she sinks her teeth into a loaf of Lycian bread. The bread is delicious, Lyn admits bitterly.

 

* * *

 

Hector is strange. He is an Ostian noble, yet behaves and speaks like a commoner. On one hand, Lyn wishes to chide him for his crassness; on the other hand, she appreciates his honestly and bluntness because it’s such a relief to find another noble who doesn’t quite fit. In Hector, Lyn can see bits of herself: that same stubbornness, that same loyalty, and that same honesty. Their relationship has come a long way since that pirate ship, yet Lyn cannot say yet where she sees it going. Lyn feels strange around Hector, like there is a bubble of warmth spreading in her chest. Yet she cannot say what the feeling is. Affection? Love?

 

A war is no place for romance, this Lyn knows. But the feeling builds, and her efforts fail her when in an Ostian marketplace, that idiot Hector tells her he’s lost his heart to her and then runs away like a coward.

 

In Sacae, a man’s father-but Lyn stops herself there. Hector’s parents are dead and so are Lyn’s. Lyn’s never cared for those particular customs anyways; she can decide her own partner thank you very much.

 

Later that night, Lyn pulls Hector into her own tent and presses a kiss against his lips as she guides them to her cot; she can feel his smile against her own. It’s not traditional (or even advisable all things considered), but it’s what she wants; screw courting and gifts and all that fluffy nonsense. 

 

* * *

 

Nergal is dead. Ninian is alive. The war is won. And soon there is a ring on Lyn’s finger. The ring is gold and jewels and sparkle; it’s an Ostian heirloom, and it sits on Lyn’s Sacean finger. The traditional Sacean symbol on a wife’s wedding ring is interlocking diamonds, on a groom’s it is interlocking circles. The circles are the shape of the ger’s roof, a symbol of protection, while the diamonds are the shape of the base, a symbol steadfast support and family. Lyn use to spend hours as a child admiring her parents’ rings, running her tiny fingers over the shapes. Lyn loves Hector deeply, and she knows that she will never regret marrying him. But Lyn also knows that marrying Hector, becoming Lady Ostia, will make parts of her heritage, her culture, inaccessible. Yet, when Lyn thinks about a possible future for herself on the plains, a future without Hector, she cannot bear it.

 

“Sometimes love means sacrifice my darling,” Lyn’s mother had told her when she had asked why she had no maternal relatives. “Sometimes, love means letting go of the past.”

 

Lyn’s own mother had run from Lycia for her Sacean love; how ironic, Lyn thinks, that she should be running _to_ Lycia for her Ostian love.

 

* * *

 

Lyn goes back to Sacae once after her marriage. Hector is meeting with Chieftain Silver Wolf in Bulgar. Lyn is heavily pregnant, but Hector cannot stop her from accompanying him. It is a small party of Lyn, Hector, and their retainers; a larger group would’ve be insulting in times of peace such as these.

 

“Saceans are born in saddle,” Lyn uses that old saying whenever her husband tries to keep her off a horse or in a carriage.

 

The meeting goes well, and Hector and Lyn spend a few extra days riding around the plains of Lyn’s childhood. They race Sacean horses, riding so fast it feels like flying. Lyn shoots rabbit and spears fish, and Hector tastes wild Sacean game for the first time. On their last day in Sacae, Lyn’s water breaks. Florina takes one hand while Hector takes the other, and Lyn labours under the protection and shade of a mighty elm tree. The labour is quick and easy, and the baby slips out of her mother like a silvery fish.  

 

The baby girl is named Lilina, and Hector and Lyn are absolutely in love with her.

 

* * *

 

Lyn nurses her own daughter. Changes her own daughter. Plays with her own daughter. Lyn snaps back like a mama bear when the wet nurses and nannies try to take Lilina away.

 

“I can take care of my own baby! Don’t touch her!”

 

Lilina is with Lyn quite literally all day every single day, and when Hector finishes with the court, he too is completely engaged with his daughter.

 

“She’s absolutely perfect,” Hector coos in awe as he watches Lilina sleep in her mother’s arms. Hector runs a finger over his baby girl’s tiny cheek; Lilina sleepily reaches up and takes her father’s finger into her grip. Hector gasps softly and breaks out into the goofy grin of a proud father.

 

“She is,” Lyn agrees.

 

* * *

 

“Mama,” Lilina calls, toddling after her mother in courtyards and tugging on her robes.

 

Lyn turns around in order to scoop her daughter up into her arms. “Yes, my little treasure?”

 

“Tell me a story please.”

 

Lyn tells Lilina the great stories and myths of the Sacean plains. Lyn tells her daughter of Mother Earth and Father Sky and the spirits and ghosts that roam the shared earth. Lilina always listens with awe and wonder.

 

All the same, Lilina enters formal schooling a few years later where she is taught of Saint Elimine, of her great miracles and powers. While Hector himself is not terribly religious, he still keeps up appearances for the sake of his people, and Lilina will be expected to do the same as his heir.

 

It is the sharpest knife of all, when Lilina no longer asks for her mother’s stories. Instead, she opts to spend her time perfecting her magic or reading her books or playing with Roy.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Lyn doesn’t die on a battlefield. She bleeds out on her own bed after delivering a baby boy far too early.

 

The boy has green hair, and he dies hours after his mother.

 

Mother and son are buried according to Ostian tradition. A member of Saint Elimine’s church reads out the final prayers before the bodies are lowered into the earth.

 

To his own dying day, Hector does not forgive himself for failing his beloved Lyn in this way; for taking the rights to her own death from her. She should have been buried according to the traditions of her people. A Sacean diviner should have said the last rites, should’ve performed the ceremony.

 

(Lyn would have laughed. Would have told Hector that you cannot take what is freely given, that bodies are mere vessels, and that no matter where her old body is buried, she has already moved on).

 

* * *

 

Years later, when both her parents are buried, Lilina rides through Sacae.

 

“Are the plains always this quiet?” Lilina asks Sue as they ride side by side.

 

“Quiet?” Sue returns, puzzled. “Do you not hear Mother Earth and Father Sky?”

 

“I can’t say I do. Sorry.”

 

“Your mother was Lorca, Lorca of Sacae,” Sue reminds her. “Therefore, you are too. Listen harder.”

 

Lilina tries, but doesn’t know what to expect. It is strange, Lilina concludes, that she should be so drawn to her mother’s homeland, now of all times. There is a Kingdom and a husband waiting for her back home, but yet Lilina had journeyed all this way.

 

“I was born in Sacae,” Lilina recounts after the silence becomes overwhelming.

 

“Really?”

 

“Under a mighty elm tree.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“I was always my papa’s daughter,” Lilina doesn’t know why she’s unloading all of this onto Sue now. “Sometimes I’d want to ask my mother about Sacae, but I’d put it off and think ‘oh, there will be more time tomorrow,’ until there wasn’t.”

 

Sue snorts then, and Lilina almost has time to be offended until Sue starts to speak again. “You’re still here; therefore, there is still tomorrow. Now come, let’s ride for a bit to clear our minds.”

 

Sue’s horse charges off into the sea of grass.

 

“Hey! Wait for me please!” Lilina calls after her as she moves her own horse forward.

 

The plains don’t speak to Lilina, not yet, and she cannot say if they ever will. But she will try; she will try because she is drawn to the land her mother loved so much, the land of her childhood stories, the land of her birth. Lilina rides; she rides, and she waits.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The rings and other cultural tidbits from Sacae were based off of Mongolian culture.
> 
> 2\. The main religion in Mongolia is Vajrayana Buddhism (sometimes also called Tibetan Buddhism, but that's a bit of an over simplification). So the stuff about death and reincarnation is based off of that. It was actually pretty fun for me to incorporate that in because while I no longer practice-and haven't for a very long time-I was raised equal parts atheist (dad) and Mahayana Buddhist (mom) with a bit of Vajrayana practice thrown in there, and my minor in University was Religious Studies. 
> 
> 3\. The furry feet horses are Clydesdales.
> 
> Also, celebratory writing piece for me because yay I have a bachelors now! (I am now the LEAST educated member of my family but with a $40 000 piece of paper hahahahaha...*sobs bitterly*)


End file.
